


anyone with heart disease (anyone with short sleeves)

by cashtastrophe



Series: goddamn, we missed the vein [3]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Underfell, Big Brother Sans, Child Abuse, Fontcest, Gaster is a dick, Gen, Headcanon, I don't know what I'm doing, If You Squint - Freeform, Slut Shaming, characterization porn, more than half of the time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 14:40:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7467258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cashtastrophe/pseuds/cashtastrophe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Papyrus paints his claws.</p>
<p>Only ever the toes—and he wears gloves, so sans isn't sure quite why the fingers are never touched—and 'paint' might not even be the right word to use for it anyways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	anyone with heart disease (anyone with short sleeves)

**Author's Note:**

> blame this on godoflaundrybaskets, who made me think too hard about sad babybones. 
> 
> nothing is really that bad here, but gaster is Not A Good Parent. Vaguely related to the rest of the series, but not related enough to go into either story, so...here. have this thing i've done. this might become a thing with just weird uf!babybones stories, i'm not sure yet.
> 
> i'm not sorry.
> 
> (see end notes for more detailed warnings)

  
  
  
  
  
  
Papyrus paints his claws.  
  
Only ever the toes—and he wears gloves, so sans isn't sure quite why the fingers are never touched—and 'paint' might not even be the right word to use for it anyways.  
  
He colors them black with a permanent marker he somehow always manages to have on him, despite his lack of apparent pockets. He's obsessive about it like he's obsessive about the crispness of his clothes, about the fresh gleam of his newly-polished armor, about the artful scuffing of his combat boots. He touches them up nearly every night while sans sits at his feet, nursing a single drink and trying to pretend he has any interest in Mettaton's latest reality show.  
  
It's always been the same color, every day since he was twelve, and sans is willing to bet that if he tried to scrub them clean, the claws would be stained a permanent grey beneath the ink. It's always been the same damn marker, practically, this awful, acrid-smelling thing that gives sans a bright, painful headache just behind his left eye socket the few times Papyrus has been exhausted or sore enough to ask for his help.  
  
He kind of likes the fuzzy feeling that comes with the headaches, this loose, giddy feeling buzzing in the back of his throat, so he doesn't complain. Kind of likes that his brother trusts him with the task, though he is careful not to make eye contact during.  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
Gaster hadn't liked it.  
  
sans was never sure if he objected to it on any kind of moral level—he was a scientist, after all, educated enough to understand the arbitrary assignment of gender roles. He suspected that instead, Gaster, whose bedroom held not a single personal effect save the rows of neatly-organized books lining the walls, was simply too Spartan, too utilitarian to understand his son's fascination with his own appearance. sans actually wasn't sure if he'd seen the man ever wearing anything but that drab, high-collared thing, a shade so dark that it nearly seemed a part of the pitch-black body beneath.  
  
Papyrus...experimented. It wasn't unusual for him to come home from school sporting a new article of clothing sans had never seen before, usually not quite his size, a little torn, and most certainly stolen from a weaker classmate.  
  
He learned to sew with no real fanfare and no assistance, as far as sans knew. He didn't spend time with anyone but Undyne, and if she knew how to alter her own clothing, sans saw no evidence of it in her torn jeans and dirty t-shirts.  
  
Papyrus's clothes fit him better, probably, than anything he could buy even in the capital, and Gaster makes no objection to this hobby at first, probably because needle and thread are relatively cheap investments, compared to the average preteen's closet.  
  
He never mentioned it, really, until the day Papyrus and Undyne had their first real skirmish—safely overseen by their teacher, obviously, poised to step in at the first sign of actual blood. Papyrus came home with a horrible brightness to his eyelights and a spectacular bruise blooming along the angle of his jawbone, nearly bouncing with every eager step. He also came home wearing a slouchy kind of maroon dress that hung on his skinny frame like an oversized t-shirt, his own shorts and shirt stuffed deep into his backpack. The hem of the dress was ragged and dirty. sans wondered blankly what Undyne had walked home in.  
  
Probably, she kept spare clothes in her bag like any smart kid, maybe a little dried fruit and money, if her mother could spare any. Certainly a knife, if he knew Undyne at all, though even at twelve she'd had a frighteningly healthy command of her battle magic.  
  
Undyne was a good foot shorter than Papyrus at that age, and the dress barely skimmed halfway down Papyrus's femurs, too short when he stood still and practically obscene when he moved. sans kept his eyelights carefully above his brother's waist and immediately felt uncomfortable for even having to _make_ that decision, but it looked garish and wrong on his brother's gawky, half-grown body. It made him feel a little sick.  
  
Gaster hadn't even looked up. He'd simply turned the page of his book and said, “If you're going to pick fights, I would prefer you do it in a less attention-seeking way. This is becoming an embarrassment, Papyrus.”  
  
And that had—man, that had _crushed_ Pap. sans could see it right there on his sharp little face, years before he'd developed the rigor mortis of the scowl he wears now. He'd visibly deflated, the bright gleam of his eyelights dulling to a humiliated, furious red.  
  
“I—” he snarled, all his rounded little teeth bared in a furious rictus. Gaster held up one hand, effectively cutting off whatever protest he'd been about to make. Still, he did not look up.  
  
“This isn't up for debate, Papyrus. Go upstairs and change. We're going to return your little friend's dress, and that will be the end of it.”  
  
They did.  
  
It wasn't.  
  
Few things had the staying power of his younger brother, once he'd really got his teeth into something, and they repeated the trip to Waterfall, to Undyne's house, seven times in the span of three weeks before Gaster finally lost his considerable patience.  
  
Sans was well-acquainted with the back of his sort-of father's hand, but he'd _never_ seen Gaster strike Papyrus, not once in the seven years he'd been living in the house with them. He'd never heard him so much as raise his voice to Papyrus.  
  
The eighth dress Papyrus came home wearing was black, with big shiny buttons where the straps met the bodice, patterned with little embroidered fish skeletons in a display of Undyne's mother's apparently terrible sense of humor. sans huffed out this little kind-of laugh at the sight of it, and Pap's grin stretched even wider.  
  
Gaster did not find it amusing. Instead, Gaster stood the moment the door clicked shut, crossed the room, and smacked Papyrus so hard across the face that it knocked his right eyelight dark for nearly a week after.  
  
Papyrus had made no noise, but he dropped heavy to the carpet, hand flying to the already-darkening ridge of his zygomatic arch where a deep crack crept up straight through the orbital bone to split his eyebrow neatly in two.  
  
“No more,” Gaster said and it didn't even sound angry. Faintly irritated, perhaps, but he chuckled when he raised another hand and Papyrus flinched back. “We're returning the dress and there will be no more of this. Do you understand me?”  
  
Papyrus, flushed and seething, nodded jerkily. Gaster smiled and patted him on the top of the skull like he'd just performed a particularly impressive trick.  
  
“This is for your own good.” Gaster's hands gripped him gently by the wide straps of the dress, helped him to his unsteady feet. “You'll thank me when you make it to adulthood without anyone helping themselves to what you're offering.”  
  
“I'm not offering _shit_ ,” was all sans managed to catch before Gaster shoved his little brother unceremoniously out the front door, only barely remembering to grab the backpack with Papyrus's actual clothes in it.  
  
He heard the blow from inside easy enough, though. Heard the ceramic _thunk_ of bone-on-bone, heard Papyrus make a noise that sans had only ever heard coming out of his own mouth.  
  
The eighth dress was the last.  
  
The marker made its debut maybe three hours after. Gaster, try as he did, could not scrub the color off no matter how hot he ran the tap over his son's claws. Soap did nothing, sponges only turned faintly grey, and after nearly half an hour of failed attempts—after Papyrus's feet were scrubbed raw, blistered and red, evidently painful to even stand on from the tender way he moved—he finally snapped, “Just keep your damn boots on,” and allowed the compromise.  
  
  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
  
  
sans waited nearly six months to ask about it. He waited until the bristling fury consuming his little brother had begun to simmer rather than boil, and even then it made him almost sick with nerves.  
  
Papyrus had been touching his claws up at the time, the dim glow of his tongue barely peeking from between his teeth as he concentrated. He'd straightened, capped the marker, shrugged, and said, without quite looking directly at sans, “Can't take her shit if I keep losing, can I? She's getting too good. Best in the class.”  
  
“okay,” sans said, because Papyrus was wearing a set of overalls with tiny seashells embroidered on the straps, the hems ragged where they'd been cropped off into shorts. The original garment had been about six inches too short for him. “you, uh, you need help with that?”  
  
Twin eyelights—the right only a touch duller, noticeable if you knew to look for it—flicked up to his. “Really?”  
  
“sure. looks uncomfortable, you being all hunched over like that.”  
  
Papyrus narrowed his sockets at his brother for a long moment, but eventually surrendered the marker with a grumbled, “don't scribble all over me with your shaky fuckin' hands, okay?” That's the last time they ever speak of it.  
  
But the next bare-knuckle brawl Pap and Undyne held in the living room, well.  
  
sans wondered sometimes if Papyrus even realized he was pulling his punches.

**Author's Note:**

> referenced homophobic/transphobic/noncisphobic (??) violence, actual parental violence, paps is Not Permitted to explore, sans feels weird about his bro


End file.
